DYLAN LEWIS: CHTHONIOS

PRESS RELEASE

Emerging out of a seven-year period of inspired productivity and emotional turbulence, ‘CHTHONIOS’ finds sculptor Dylan Lewis in an extended moment of introspection and reckoning. The artist’s present preoccupation sees him grappling with the emotional tensions and complexities of human relationships, while striving towards reconnection with his sense of self. This journey has brought Lewis down a number of avenues, which converge on the current exhibition as a whole.

Venturing between visceral abstraction, frank eroticism, bold exuberance, wholesale embracing of the human figure, and a move away from the fragmentary and the isolated, Lewis has imbued this new exhibition with a markedly different energy and confidence than earlier work. ‘CHTHONIOS’ finds him returning to the themes that defined his earlier sculptures, albeit in a fresh and assured new guise.

Following three decades of artistic practice – including countless shows, a sculpture garden, and three solo exhibitions at Christie’s – the sculptures, busts and reliefs that make up ‘CHTHONIOS’ may well represent the first time that Dylan Lewis truly feels at home in his voice.

Established in 1913, Everard Read is Africa’s oldest commercial art gallery and presents modern and contemporary art from South Africa. Our Cape Town galleries have a rigorously curated exhibition programme of South Africa’s top artists